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Re: "TN parents, there's a bookie in your college kid's pocket," Aug. 17
Emily Stack's op-ed asks Tennessee parents to worry about what a college freshman does with a phone and a Venmo balance. While the discussion around age restrictions for prediction marketswarrants debate, the column's premise does not hold up.
Prediction markets are not unregulated. They are federally regulated exchanges overseen by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Opening an account requires a government ID, age over 18 and social security number,
all of which are verified against third-party databases under federal anti-money-laundering rules – the same standards that govern every CFTC-regulated market.
The structure matters too. An exchange is not a sportsbook. It never takes the other side of your trade; it charges a transaction fee, the way Nasdaq does. A sportsbook sets the odds, profits when you lose and shows winning customers the door.
One disclosure the column omits: The polling that Stack references was commissioned by Gambling Is Not Investing, an anti-prediction-market coalition that counts Moms for America among its members. Citing a shady poll with biased financing might be common in politics, but it is not independent evidence of anything except gaslighting.
Parents should talk to their kids about risk. Policymakers should sort out the age question. Neither goal is served by pretending a regulated federal exchange is a bookie in your college freshman’s pocket.
Sean Patrick Maloney represented New York's 18th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives for five terms, from 2013 to 2023, where he chaired the House Agriculture Committee's Subcommittee on Commodity Markets, Digital Assets, and Rural Development, which oversees the CFTC. He is President and CEO of the Coalition for Prediction Markets.
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This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: How prediction markets differ from sportsbooks | Letters
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